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You: I haven't seen any insights into life lately from you.

Me: You are right. The writing has been thin.

You: You haven't been writing anything.

Me: I'm in transition and I'm tired.

You: Transition? Tired?

Me: Physically and mentally I am in transit. I am moving from one place to another. I have rented a sparsely furnished apartment. The walls are white and resemble those of a museum without any paintings hanging from them.

You: Are you retreating into your Zen mind?

Me: I wish I could, but my appetites rule me. I am seeking escape from the white noise to a white space. With COVID and Trump, there is too much commotion. I have some hope that with a vaccine and Biden there might be the return to a modicum of normalcy, but my own world has been spinning out of control. As a result of this instability, I am profoundly tired.

You: What is your solution?

Me: Physically, I am turning to long walks and Yankee Yoga. I can never abandon the joys of beer and wine, but I am consuming less. I don't intend to be a hermit, but there are times that we must realize that we are anonymous individuals and we must accept our meaninglessness. What do we do when we recognize this reality? We retreat. 

You: Where do you go?

Me: You take your place in a long line and wait until they call your name.

You: And when they call your name?

Me: You step forward and hope the news is good.

You: Changing the subject because I've always been curious: How do you escape writer's block?

Me: By writing.

You: But what do you write? You can't just write anything.

Me: Yes, you can. If you have an imagination and search deep within yourself for inspiration, you can rediscover the path to self-expression.

You: Is that your strategy with this stark conversation?

Me: Exactly. You have to prime the pump. The mere act of typing words on to a blank screen has a magical quality of its own. You can't keep your body in shape in you don't exercise. You won't produce a poem or a story or a novel if your fingers don't start dancing across the keyboard.

You: But how do you get them to dance?

Me: What makes you want to dance?

You: Music.

Me: Exactly. I go to YouTube, select Tom Jobim's greatest hits and my fingers find their rhythm and next thing I know I have a product.

You: But is it a project worth reading?

Me: Why do we exercise? We exercise for ourselves. The same is true with writing. I write with an audience in mind, but I write for myself. I know if I'm pleased, somebody else will be pleased with my snippet of nonsense. The wonderful experience of creating something out of nothing never grows old. It helps if writing is such a part of your being that life has no meaning without it. I feel sorry for people that aren't filled with an artistic spirit. A musician composes a three-minute tune and that song can be the anthem for the rest of his existence.

You: But I can't sing.

Me: Then start painting.

You: Are you no longer pontificating about local politics?

Me: When does it end? I busted my ass covering the county, college, school board and port elections. I wasn't reticent about opining about my support for Biden and my odium for Trump. I will offer my two cents worth on our politicians. There is a financial incentive in maintaining the blog and I can't suffer certain fools, but I'm on empty these days. We have Thanksgiving in a week and the Christmas season throughout December. Locally, I'm cooked. Nationally, there is the challenge of adding your voice to the chorus that Trump exit and Biden enter.

You: But you're the Voice of Brownsville.

Me: Hardly. I'm little more than part of the cacophony. The ranting and raving never cease just like yet another controversy following yet another crisis never ceases. 

You: How long have you been covering Brownsville?

Me: How long has Brownsville been covering me would be a more accurate questions. I became sports editor at The Brownsville Herald in 1977 and I've been sitting in my 50-yard-line seat for 45 years. Yesterday I traveled to watch Mick play against Weslaco East. Once you embark on a certain path in life, you are condemned like a prisoner walking to the gallows to complete your death sentence. I have a constant lament. Over beers one afternoon in Mexico a gentleman informed me that my future might be awaiting me in Brownsville. I took his advice, but couldn't he have told me that my future was awaiting me in Austin or New York City or Miami!

You: How did your son's team do?

Me: It was a 49-0 shellacking, which over my four decades here has not been that uncommon of an experience for Brownsville teams where losing is a football tradition. It has not been that uncommon of an occurrence for Brownsville teams to be behind 49-0 at half.

You: How did your son do?

Me: He caught five passes. As a sophomore he is a starting end and he plays with an incredible passion. Sports has been the one constant in my life. I have these delusions that I could be a standout tennis player, but at a minimum there are few pleasures that compare to stroking a ball on our windless, temperate autumn evenings.

You: What is your greatest disappointment about Brownsville? You've raised a half-dozen children here. A hip cat like yourself wouldn't torture himself rotting away in a self-imposed prison. You obviously have a deep love for our border town.

Me: Our leadership undermines us. Excluding their misguided calling as politicians because most of them are decent individuals, you couldn't ask for a kinder or more generous people than our fellow citizens. It is the reason I've remained here. I've married three of them and the only complaint I have about them is that they didn't have better sense in choosing a husband. I do have some strengths, but I have more than my share of weaknesses.  

You: Why don't you run for mayor and lead us to the Promised Land?

Me: I will be 70 in a month. I ran for mayor when I was 32. Unlike my ex-spouses, the voters had the good sense to reject me.

You: Have you ever been mortified by hate and anger?

Me: Several times. I've raged against rage.

You: What have you done to escape these demons?

Me: I have made drastic decisions to change the direction of my life. If I hadn't, I would have annihilated myself in self-destructive behavior. But there is also an unfortunate reality.

You: What is that?

Me: Sometimes you can't escape them. They haunt you ceaselessly. There are respites from their onslaughts, but there is no rest. 

You: How do you survive in this unsettling state?

Me: Xanax. Cough syrup. Even Excedrin. You may not have a headache that is causing you physical pain, but you have a headache that is causing you mental pain. Excedrin has a tranquilizing effect on me. You do your best to dull yourself of your psychological afflictions without compromising your clarity. On a purely tangible level, exercise and sleep have to be a part of your regimen if you intend to survive.

You: How is your mental state at this moment.

Me: Fragile. I am not in control of myself right now, but like the hate and anger that plague you, you learn to live in this precarious condition.

You: Do you ever contemplate suicide?

Me: Like a bullet entering your brain, I have thought about it, but unless I were terminally sick, I wouldn't resort to a drastic decision to alter my situation. I believe one solution is to run from a problem. Some might consider it a lesser form of suicide because of the widespread Coronavirus affecting the country, but I would consider traveling to Brazil as a radical but necessary change. I have said that before I committed suicide, I would live in Portugal for a year and then weigh my options. We're so toxic as a nation these days with the pandemic that Portugal and most Western European countries won't allow us inside their borders, but Brazil has a president as crazy as Trump and there are no travel restrictions for us. As long as you have money and your health, why would you want to kill yourself? There is always an adventure just around the next corner.

You: What are you doing at this very moment to deal with your desperation?

Me: Writing.